10 Tips to Promote Your Next Webinar

In 2013, 62% of B2B used webinars to promote their brands, which is up from 42% the year before. Obviously, webinars are gaining popularity and they are working as a lead generation tool, not just a marketing tool. Why should you incorporate them into your marketing plan and budget? Because webinars rank as the top content format in driving qualified leads.

Recently, I’ve been working with client and dedicated webinar solution, ReadyTalk, on some content for best webinar practices and why the cost per lead is worth it. Not only have I found some great webinar stats, but we’re going to be implementing them in our own webinar series coming up with social monitoring tool sponsor, Meltwater (stay tuned!).

So, here are the top 10 webinar promotion tips you should follow when planning for your next webinar:

Start promoting your webinar at least one week before the event – For best results, start three weeks out. While the majority of your registrants are going to register the week of the webinar, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t start promoting early. According to the 2013 Webinar Benchmark Report, starting promotion at least seven days out can increase you registrations by over 36%! The percentages start to go down, with 2 to 7 days at 27%, day before at 16%, and day of at 21%.

Use email as your primary way to promote the webinar – According to ReadyTalk’s research, email remains as the top way to promote a webinar, with a 4.46 out of 5. The second top way to promote was social media, which was almost a whole two points lower at 2.77. You can also utilize Webinar promotion sites like Brainy Octopus.

When it comes to webinars, 3 is the magic number for email campaigns deployed – Given that you are starting webinar promotion at least one week out, three email campaigns is the optimal number for webinar promotion:

Send one initial campaign to promote your webinar, talking about the topic and the problem it will solve for those who listen in the subject line

Send out another email a couple of days later with the subject line including any guest speakers or results-driven language

For people who have already registered, send out an email the day of the event to increase attendance

For people who still need to register, send out an email the day of the event to increase registration

Send emails on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays – The days with the most registrants are Tuesdays with 24%, Wednesdays with 22%, and Thursdays with 20%. Stick to the middle of the week to make sure that your emails aren’t ignored or deleted.

Did you know? 64% of people register for the webinar the week of the live event.

Host your webinar on Tuesdays or Wednesdays – Based on ReadyTalk’s research and data, the best days of the week to host webinars are Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Why? Because people are catching up on Monday, and they’re ready for the weekend by Thursday.

Host your webinar at 11AM PST ( 2PM EST) or 10AM PST (1PM EST) – If you are having a national webinar, then the best time to facilitate everyone’s schedules across the nation is 11AM PST (22%). 10AM PST comes in second place with 19%. The closer to lunch hour, the less likely people are to be in meetings or catching up in the morning.

Always, always, always have your webinar available on-demand after the event (and promote that you will do so). – As we all know, unexpected things can come up in our schedule. Make sure that your registrants know that they can access the webinar on-demand, should they not be able to attend or if they want to listen to it later.

Limit your registration form to 2 to 4 form fields. – The highest converting forms are between 2 – 4 forms fields, where conversions can increase by almost 160%. Currently, the average conversion rate when someone reaches a landing page for a webinar is only 30 – 40%. While it might seem tempting to ask for more information in the form so you can better qualify prospects, it is more important to get them to the webinar than scaring them away with too many forms. Which brings me to my next point…

Use polls and Q&A to gather more information about your prospects. – 54% of marketers used questions to engage their audience and 34% used polls, according to ReadyTalk data. This is where you can truly start the conversation with your prospects and learn more about them. And, finally…

Repurpose in-real time. – Before you conduct the live webinar, make sure you are ready to repurpose the content in real-time to increase engagement and encourage others to be interested:

89% of people turn the webinar into a blog post. Make sure you schedule one to go out immediately after the webinar, with the link ready for the webinar audience to reference if they need it. Extra tip: Use a branded bit.ly link to track and make the url shorter.

Either have someone on your staff live-tweet, or schedule tweets to go out during the webinar. You’ll get more social engagement during the event.

Have a hashtag that is dedicated for the event and let attendees know so that they can follow the conversation.

Well, that’s it, folks. I hope these simple tips help you in promoting your future webinars!

Jenn, I really enjoyed your post. My experience with webinars jibes with most of what you said. I’m curious, however, to know how you concluded that most registrants sign up in the last week before the webinar. We often send out invites 2-3 weeks ahead of time, and most of our registrations come immediately after the first invite. I’d love to hear more about your experience.

Hi Ben! Thanks for your comment and your feedback. I actually found the data about registrants from the ON24 webinar benchmark report: http://www.on24.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ON24_Benchmark_V8.pdf. We also see an influx when we send out the first email. But, I did the math, and the last webinar we conducted had more people register during the week of than those who signed up immediately after the email went out. Thanks again for your comment and hope all is well!

Great tips! In fact, one of the best lists of webinar promotion tips I’ve come across in my research! Interesting though how some will say not to ALWAYS make your webinar replay available. Some experts say when your audience knows there’s going to be a replay made available, live attendance lessons.

So glad I found your post! We are just beginning to expand out education services via webinars and really have no clue where to start! Do you do any direct consulting or help with something like this? We are an Apple technologies support and education company here in central Florida.

Thankyou for a interesting post. I see you do not mention evenings for webinars. Would they not be good? If it is a home business of types would this not be a good time and what time and days would you suggest

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